Primary Menu

A Day in My Life with Autism

In this latest Blog, I will talk about what a typical day is like for me on the Autism Spectrum.

No day is the same for anyone whether on the Autistic Spectrum or not but I will try give you an overview of what a day for me is like. I plan to come back to the series ‘a day in my life’ in a few weeks when I start in college.

I usually wake up about 10am as I have very little to do with my day, I am not working or in college, and for those of you who don’t know over the last year I have had two ankle surgeries to repair a severed ligament and to reconstruct my ACLs short for anterior crucial ligaments.

Firstly, I get up and shower then eat something, I head to the gym to do some rehab work on my ankles. Getting to the gym is my first problem, I used to cycle everywhere before I had surgery but now my ankles are not strong enough and my physio has advised me not to cycle yet as I could do further damage. So, I have no choice but to use public transport which is something that causes me a lot of anxiety, I feel the need to go to the loo often, I get hot and my heart rate increases. I feel I am relying on a bus that never comes when it’s scheduled to, I always check the bus App and it would say arriving in 20 mins so I would walk down and be there at least 10 mins before the bus is supposed to come, for someone like me it is hard to understand why if the App says the bus will be on time why it is not, I get very anxious if I am late for anything. While I wait on the bus I begin to worry about the interaction I must have with the bus driver when getting on or even off the bus. In my gym bag, I always pack far too much, when packing I start to obsess and totally overpack, I worry I don’t have enough with me so I end up with two of everything. Even as I walk into the gym building I am worrying if I have everything I need.

After the gym I head home, I am obsessed with Mentalism so I would read one of my magic books or watch a magic lecture. If the doorbell rings and it is someone who has arrived unplanned it really stresses me out, if I am alone I find it impossible to answer the door, if someone else is there to answer I find it very hard to interact with whoever has arrived, it takes me some time to adjust to the new situation often I will just head up to my room. If there is a delivery to the house that is important and I know it’s coming I will answer otherwise I will ignore the doorbell, the anxiety can make me feel exhausted.

Every night I must go through the same routine which includes checking and rechecking that the doors in the house are locked, I have a shower and complete bedtime rituals in a certain order otherwise I feel like something bad is going to happen. I usually go to bed around 10pm or 11pm, I can’t sleep easy, I lie in my bed worrying about every little detail of my life, I worry if I will ever get a job, what people think of me, do they like me or are they just pretending to like me. I compare myself to what others are doing in their lives and question why I don’t have a job, don’t have a girlfriend etc. I find myself not getting to sleep until very late with all my worries and my anxiety levels building.